Zone Conference yesterday. Temple today. The day before that I got a good clump of letters (one of which contained a spoon), so things have been quite eventful lately. Zone Conference was especially good and I learned lots of good things that will help me fulfill my callings better.
Well, I'm still working things out here in Barrio 4. My brain almost 'sploded these first few weeks, but things are getting a little better, bit by bit. I'm making less mistakes than I was a week ago, so I suppose that counts as progress. :) Let's just say that the monkey mass has been beat down to more or less 50%. That's still a whole lot of shrieking monkeys, but the situation is now a bit more manageable. I've found a lot of help in focusing on the basic elements of the gospel in my own personal life, like studying the scriptures with more focus, praying with more faith and more desire. Things just work better when your Christ-like attributes are improving. That, and Hermana Watkins gave a great presentation in Zone Conference about the two extremes: Disobedience and Perfectionism. Both have the same results: guilt, unhappiness, feelings of low self-worth, etc., etc. I'd never thought of it that way before. That's helped me too. 
What can I say about the area...? It's a good area. I get to know it a little bit better every day, and I can find most of the members houses and I know where a good amount of the metro stops are. I've been thinking of various subtle ways that we can improve the quality of the missionary work here. For example, our area is very big and things are quite spread out. Traveling takes up a lot of our time. I want to start planning appointments according to area, so that we can use our time more effectively. I also had a good experience while contacting yesterday. To give a bit of background, the mission has a new focus on finding families and teenagers to teach (families because it just works better that way, and teenagers so they can replace us as missionaries). So, we had just gotten out of Zone Conference and were headed to visit someone, and I saw a family on a bench: the mother, a baby in a stroller, a little girl and a 14 year old boy. Nothing too out of the ordinary or conspicuous. The thought came through my head, "Hey look! It's a family AND a teenager. Fancy that!" I took the thought as just an amusing observation and kept walking for a few seconds, and then it was just like the Spirit said, "No, seriously, Elder Knorr. Contact them." So I told my companion that we needed to go back and we contacted them. Turns out they're really nice and we have an appointment to visit them this Friday at 7. :)
Being in the city has been a bit of a logistical nightmare, because missionaries are always sending in references from other areas. These past few weeks, I've been going through the reference list with my companion and doing a bit of "Spring Cleaning" (it looks like that list hasn't been touched in months :S). We may actually finish them up this week! We've been working on developing airtight systems so that not one of the references we get from other areas gets lost, and we're still working on getting them all contacted. We never seem to have enough time...
Ok, so, now what everyone's been wondering about: the Mother's Day call! Missionaries from the States will be calling on the 9th of May, which will be a Sunday. I look forward to talking to my good ol' family again! Well, time is up! I love you all and I thank you for your help and love and support. Take care, my dear family and friends.
-Elder Knorr
